A blog about genealogy

Menu

I wonder if they grow strawberries in Memphis, Tennessee…

That’s exactly why I started an English version of my blog… well let’s say an American version…

To find descendants of people who lived in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines.

Maybe I will become famous and be invited to Jay Leno’s show or Oprah’s or Doctor Phil’s.

I don’t watch much TV since I began looking for my ancestors and other people’s ancestors.

Now what about this picture?

This picture was taken around 1910 at Jean-Marie Hogue’s house in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Jean-Marie or John Hogue was born in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines on August 2, 1846.

He was a complete stranger to Cécile, who had this picture in her collection, except for Richard and Yvon Lauzon who recalled having seen that particular picture when they were young boys back in the late 50s and the early 60s.

Richard told me he was even mesmerized by it… That picture was hanging on the wall leading to the second floor of one of his relative’s house.

Yvon, Richard and Cécile help me in finding out more about Jean-Marie Hogue. I had also a lot of help from Loulou, one of my readers I told you about.

In the 1870 census, we find Jean-Marie Hogue working in a shoe factory in Malborough, Massachusetts. He is listed as John Hogue. He lived in the boarding house of Aurélie Beauregard with other shoe workers. Aurélie was in fact Aurélie Brodeur married to André Beauregard. One of their daughters was Mélanie Beauregard…

In 1877, we find Jean-Marie in Montreal. He is said to be a cabinet maker. In the 1900 and 1920 censuses, he is back in Malborough where he died on October 8, 1920, at the of age of 74.

Who did John Hogue married…?

Mélanie Beauregard around 1876, in Massachusetts. The same Mélanie back in 1870.

We don’t know the precise date, but we know a son was born on May 15, 1877. Adonis was their first child. He was christened in Montreal. Adonis died on March 11, 1891.

Mélanie and Jean-Marie had another son, Arthur, born in December 1879 and a daughter Bernadette born around 1891. Both were born in the U.S.

This is Arthur Hogue in 1910.

Click on the image to access his file

This is Bernadette in 1910 also.

Click on the image to access her file

After his first wife’s death, John Hogue married Hermine Léveillé on March 11, 1893 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts.They had two daughters and one son: Corinne, Yvette and Adonis.

Here are their children.

Adonis is the little boy on the left, Corine is beside her mother Hermine Léveillé who is holding Yvette.

What is so special about this man?

John Hogue, like hundred of thousands French Canadians, went to the U.S., raised a family and left numerous descendants and relatives whom we know little about.

Except one…

Next time… Are you ready for this?

Note:

Emigration to New England

From the mid-19th to the early 20th century, the western hemisphere witnessed unprecedented population migration. Europeans crossed the Atlantic to settle in North America, part of the American east coast population moved farther west, and, closer to home, Canadians crossed the border to live in the United States.

From 1840 to 1930 an estimated 900 000 people left Quebec for the United States. Most of these headed to factories in the industrial cities of the northeast, especially in New England. Certain cities such as Lowell, Massachusetts and Manchester, New Hampshire, received thousands of these emigrants. There, they established entire neighbourhoods and parishes of French-Canadian Catholics. There were many reasons for such a population migration: the division of agricultural land among many members of the same family led to a shortage of resources in Quebec. The province also experienced economic problems and the enticement of well-paying American jobs was often irresistible. Although the political elite and the Church tried various means to put a halt to this exodus, they never succeeded in stopping it entirely.